


untitled

by RenkonNairu



Category: He-Man and the Masters of the Multiverse (Comic), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anti-Eternia, Eternia's Dark Mirror, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Keldor!He-Man, Masters of the Multiverse (comic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26986537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenkonNairu/pseuds/RenkonNairu
Summary: Based off the "Masters of the Multiverse" comic by DC and taking place in the Anti-Eternia universe.Also based off an AU of "Masters of the Multiverse" created by SouthernPeach13 on Tumblr.Keldor takes his nephew out to try and get Adam to vent some of the pent-up emotions the trauma of anti-Truth left him with. While walking through Eternos, a confrontation bumps into them and Adam does not handle it as gracefully as Keldor would have liked.
Relationships: He-Man | Adam & Keldor (He-Man)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	untitled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Southernpeach13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Southernpeach13/gifts).



> This is based off of SoutherPeach's AU, which you can read about on their Tumblr.  
> [Adam Lives](https://southernpeach13.tumblr.com/post/631695206570393601/heres-my-take-on-my-boy-so-me-and-emperorsfoot)  
> 

“Where are we going?” Adam asked as he followed his uncle through the streets of Eternos. 

“To get in a little trouble, and annoy your father.” Keldor answered with a bit of a laugh, hooking his dark hair behind one pointed ear and flashing his nephew a skeleton grin. 

Since being cleansed of the corruption from anti-Truth, Adam had been tense, anxious, and maybe a little manic since returning home. Sometimes he was really good. Smiling and laughing with the rest of the family like nothing was wrong and nothing had happened. Other times, a maid would walk into his room to find him huddled in a corner, his head in his knees, hugging himself so tight his nails dug into his skin. 

Randor didn’t know what to do. 

Truth be told, Keldor didn’t really know what to do either. But he did know what always made him feel better, and thought it was worth a try to see if it would make Adam feel better too.

“We’re here.” Keldor announced. 

Adam looked around. 

They were standing in the gap between two buildings. Just a little too short of a space to be called an ‘ally’, but just as out of the way and obscured from view. Adam raised one eyebrow. “Are you gonna beat me up and steal my lunch money, Uncle?”

“No.” Keldor assured him. Adam was a Prince, he didn’t carry his own money; they had people to do that for them. Keldor raised his hands, called on his magic and conjuring several cans of spray paint in multiple colors. He hands a can of pink paint –Adam’s favorite color- to him. “You’re going to paint this wall. Whatever you wanna paint. Whatever you need to get out.”

Adam looked at the can of paint his uncle was holding out to him. “Father disapproves of tagging, Uncle.”

“Well, Randor’s not here.” Keldor flashed his best trollish smile. It was a little unsettling now, with half his face scraped away on one side and the bone of the skull exposed. Keldor’s mischievous grins now all looked a bit more sinister than he ever meant them to. But Adam understood. There was no harm in painting an out-of-the-way city wall. Just innocent tomfoolery. Something Prince Keldor was well known for. 

Shaking the can of paint in his hand, Adam squeezed the top and held the spray nozzle close to the wall for a narrower stream. Then he wrote ‘Adam was here.’

He looked back at Keldor for approval.

His uncle ran a hand through is ebony hair, hooking the strands behind his pointed ears. “Okay. That’s a start.” He nodded. “But I was imagining more of a cathartic release of emotions. It doesn’t have to look good. So long as you’re giving vent to what’s inside you. Here. Look.”

Using his magic to move and manipulate the remaining paint cans he conjured, Keldor began a filling in half of the wall. It appeared to be just splashes of color at first. Shapeless and formless. But he kept overlapping the colors until the silhouette of a sword emerged from the sea of colors, the blade a silvered gray against a rainbow background. Above the sword in white paint, Keldor wrote, using his own unique graffiti font, ‘Power doesn’t corrupt…’ then below it he finished the thought, ‘…it just shows you who you really are’.

Keldor looked back at his nephew to see if the younger man understood. Art wasn’t about making things that looked pretty. Art was about expression and expressing one’s one’s self through creation. Street art wasn’t about defacing city property. It was about being daring and showcasing your expressions in a public forum. 

Whatever epiphany Adam took away from what Keldor painted, it was not what he had intended. 

Adam’s head was down. His shaggy mop of golden hair –which he was growing out now- obscuring his face from view. He was hugging himself again. His hands gripping his arms so tight he was wrinkling the white sleeves of his tunic. 

“Hey, hey, hey…” Keldor quickly vanished the cans of paint and rushed to his nephew’s side. Adam was sixteen and teenagers were hard enough to manage without said teenager also being traumatized. “It’s okay. We don’t have to tag anything. We can go back to the palace if you want.”

At first, Adam’s only response was a single, lone, chocked little sob. Followed by the shaky breathing of someone trying to get themselves under their own control. After not having any control over his own body for the entire time he was Anti-He-Man, Adam probably felt uncomfortable in his own skin. 

“Power shows you who you really are.” Adam finally spoke, reading the writing on the wall. His voice shook and Adam wiped at the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand. But when he lifted his head, both his eyes were dry; peering out through the curtain of his mop of golden hair. “And when I got power I turned into the worst monster in the world –the worst monster in all the worlds! Is that who I really am?”

Damn. That was not Keldor’s intension. That was not Keldor’s intension at all. 

The whole point of taking Adam out to deface some public buildings was to make Adam feel better, not worse! 

“Oh, Adam, that’s not- that’s not it at all.” Keldor tried to reassure him. “You’re just a kid! And a Power Sword, and Hellskull, and anti-Truth are some of the strongest powers in the multiverse. Of course it was going to be overwhelming. Anti-He-Man… that wasn’t the real you. That’s not who you really are. That’s what anti-Truth and those eldritch horrors wanted you to be.” 

Adam brushed a lock of messy hair out of his eyes. He glared at Keldor, looking skeptical. 

“You’re only sixteen, nephew.” Keldor continued. “You’re still trying to figure out who you really are.”

“I’m the guy who nearly destroyed, not only my own world, but all the worlds.” Adam growled, more to himself than to his uncle. 

“No you’re not.” Keldor insisted, grabbing his nephew by the shoulders and looking him right in the eyes. “I was there too, Adam. I was the one to exorcised you of anti-Truth’s corruption. You are not the crimes you committed. You are a child that was manipulated and used.” 

More because he wasn’t enjoying this conversation and wanted it to end, rather than any version of actually accepting and believing what his uncle was saying, Adam nodded. Uncle Keldor was He-Man now and –thus far- hadn’t gone evil or destroyed anything. So, maybe he wasn’t completely wrong. 

Maybe giving ultimate power to children or teenagers wasn’t a good idea.

“Do you wanna go back to the palace?” Keldor asked again. 

“Yeah.” Adam nodded again, more enthusiastic this time. He wanted to be on his home ground and lock himself in his room for a few hours. 

…

While they were walking back to the palace, someone walking the opposite direction bumped into Keldor. They bumped him hard enough to force him to roll his shoulder, then kept walking as if Keldor hadn’t even been there. 

This actually happened to him more often than Randor or Adam were aware of and he was totally willing to let it go and ignore the tiny micro-aggression. The only indication that he was bothered at all was a nearly inaudible sigh. 

Adam, on the other hand, stopped in his step and wheeled around so fast that Keldor walking next to him almost got whip lash. 

“Hey!” Adam shouted after them. “You’re supposed to say ‘excuse me’!”

The offending bumper turned back around. Expression feigning confusion, the shadow of a taunting smirk pulling at their lips. “To who?”

“My uncle.” Adam informed them. “You smacked right into him.”

“Uncle?” They echoed. Eyes slowly sliding from Adam, with his wavy golden hair, blue eyes, alabaster skin, and round human ears; to Keldor with his strait black hair, equally dark eyes, jewel blue skin, and pointed ears. “I don’t see the resemblance.”

Being half-Gar, Keldor did not look like anyone else in his family. 

“It doesn’t matter if you see the resemblance or not.” Adam insisted. “You bumped into him. You should apologize.”

There was an extended pause.

The bumper’s lip curled. 

Then, “I’m sorry this Gar was walking our streets.”

Keldor issued another nearly inaudible sigh. There it was. This stuff happened to him all the time whenever he went out of the palace. Randor or Adam didn’t usually come with him, so they didn’t really realize that it happened. 

On the rare occasion that Randor did accompany Keldor out and about on the town, Randor was unmistakable as the King of the world. Everyone knew the King had a Gar half-brother, so when he was with Randor, Keldor was unmistakably ‘Prince Keldor’. No one was gonna be making racially motivated micro-aggressions against the King’s brother! 

Clearly, this person did not recognize Keldor as the King’s brother, or Adam as the Crown Prince. They would not have tried anything with them if they had. 

Adam sputtered a series of indecipherable syllables, completely taken aback by their blatant and unapologetic remark. “Gar have just as much right to be here as you and I do!”

Placing a hand on Adam’s shoulder, Keldor tried to pull his nephew back the way they were going. “Leave it alone. Let’s just go home.”

Sometimes confronting ignorant jerks like this, and allowing things to escalate, did more harm than good. 

“Apologize to my uncle right now!” Adam, it seemed, wanted to escalate thing. “For bumping into him and for that Gar comment.”

The bumper’s lip curled again. “No.” He sneered. “When a dog wanders in out of the gutter tracking it’s filth in with it, you don’t apologize to the dog. You kick the mutt back out! If your ‘uncle’ doesn’t wanna get tripped over by real Eternians, maybe he should go back to that island of theirs in Gnarl Ocean. Mind his own business pulling rice out of the mud, or whatever it is Gar do.”

Keldor had never been to the island of Anwat Gar. He was born in Eternos and lived most of his life in the palace. 

While the main food stable on Anwat Gar was rice, their culture’s largest export was actually artisan weapons and armor. 

Not that people like this one were interested in actually learning about the races and cultures they hated. 

A fact Adam finally realized with that last comment. 

There was no talking to this person. Maybe now Adam would realize it was better to just let it go and head back to the pala-

“Adam, no!”

Before Keldor even knew what was happening, Adam had pulled out his self-defense knife and practically launched himself at the bumper. 

It was a true testament to how fast Keldor’s reflexes had become since he gained the power of He-Man that he was able to catch Adam before his blade could connect with the other’s eye. Blue hands grabbing the younger man around the waist, nearly throwing them both off balance, but still managing to pull Adam out of mid-air and set him back on his feet. 

“Say that about my uncle again, you racist bitch!” Adam snarled, still holding his knife. 

“Now I see the resemblance.” They only continued to taunt. “A rabid dog to his filthy mutt.”

Pulling against Keldor’s hold, Adam snarled again. Wordlessly this time. Trying to get closer to the one he now deemed an enemy. 

That was about the time the palace guard showed up. Probably drawn by the confrontation. Or maybe called by some concerned citizen who saw a Gar standing outside their shop front and decided they didn’t like that. 

That was something that happened to Keldor a lot too. It was always a good laugh when the palace guard came to investigate reports of a ‘dangerous blue man’ loitering in the streets and found only Prince Keldor carrying a crate of new paint. The guards were always embarrassed and apologetic, and Keldor promised them they’d all laugh about it some day. (Keldor never found it funny. Ever.)

At the moment, Keldor was actually over-joyed to see the palace guard show up. 

Tri-Klops, King Randor’s right hand man. Duncan, whom was newly exorcised of anti-Truth’s corruption like Adam was and returned to his regular position as Man-at-Arms. Trap Jaw, another of Randor’s direct lieutenants, and another Gar like Keldor was. 

Trap Jaw took one look at Keldor trying to hold the Crown Prince back, while the other just continued to taunt them and immediately knew what was going on. One thumb unconsciously running across the adaptive joint of his prosthetic jaw. He knew exactly what was going on here. 

“Oh, good.” The bumper continued to jeer. They still thought they had the upper hand. “The palace guard is here for you.”

“Actually, that’s true.” Keldor nodded. 

“Is there a problem here…?” all three of Tri-Klops’ eyes swept over the scene before focusing on Keldor and Adam. Tri-Klops put a little extra emphasis on his next words. “…Your Highness.”

The one who had bumped into Keldor and continued to taunt Adam froze. Suddenly unsure of themselves and what exactly was going on here. “Did- did he just call you…?”

Trap Jaw stepped forward, subtly placing himself between the members of the royal family and the random citizen who had no idea exactly what kind of fight they unknowingly picked. “Prince Keldor, I see Crown Prince Adam has his weapon drawn. Did this person attack you?”

The person in question went white as a sheet. 

Oh gods. Oh, all the gods! Gods above and below! That wasn’t just some rando Gar off the street. That was the King’s brother he just bumped into! That was the King’s brother he just called a filthy mutt! That was the future King he just called a rabid dog! 

The bumper began to cry. 

“I am so, so, so sorry! Crown Prince Adam! Prince Keldor! Please, I-“

“This guy-!” Adam began but Keldor cut him off. 

Adam seemed keen on escalation in his current mood and Keldor preferred the path of de-escalation whenever dealing with those who already took issue with his mere existence. 

“An honest mistake.” Keldor assured the palace guard. Now it was his own turn to flash a taunting smile at the bumper. “They didn’t know what they were doing.”

“But, Uncle-“ Adam tried to argue. 

But Keldor cut him off again. “It’s been a surprisingly trying day, actually. Perhaps an escort back to the palace would help dissuade any further misunderstandings.”

“But-“ Adam tried to protest again. 

Keldor took him by the hand and pulled him along. Tri-Klops, Man-at-Arms, and Trap Jaw falling into formation around them. 

Keldor waited until they were several blocks away from the incident before whispering to Adam. “If you’re ever with me again when something like that happens, you take your cues from me and do what I say, okay?”

“But, Uncle, they were the one who was wrong!” Adam hissed back. He was young and he was angry, and he was looking for a righteous cause. 

Keldor understood. Once, he was also young and angry. “I’m not saying he wasn’t wrong. But you weren’t the one he wronged. You don’t get to decide how the situation is handled. The next time you’re with me-“ a pause to consider the lesson he was actually trying to convey “-the next time you’re with _any_ non-human Eternian and something like that happens, you do what they want you to do. Do you understand me?”

Adam only frowned at him. 

“You are not helping people of color if you’re not _listening_ to what they are telling you.” Keldor tried to explain. “I told you to let it go. Instead you pulled a knife. What if they also had a knife? What if they had another weapon with a longer reach? What if they were a sorcerer. You put both of us in danger with that stunt.”

“But you’re He-Man!” It was hard to keep that as a whisper. No one else was supposed to know that Keldor was He-Man now. Thanks to Adam rampaging as Anti-He-Man, He-Men were not well liked on Eternia. 

“That’s immaterial. I’m not going to use the Power Sword to beat up someone for telling me to ‘go back to the island’.” Keldor shook his head. “And besides, it shouldn’t matter if I’m He-Man or not. If your goal was to protect me, then your job is to make sure I feel safe and not escalate the situation. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Adam?”

Adam looked down at his feet as they walked. 

It was almost half a block before he answered. “If I’m ever in a situation like that again, regardless of who it is, I'll listen to what they need from me.”

Keldor wrapped an arm around his nephew and pulled him into an awkward waking hug. “That’s the way to be an alley.”

…

END


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